Rebel attacks hit Baghdad as Rumsfeld visits Iraq

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An explosion killed up to 17 people in Baghdad yesterday hours before US Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld arrived to gauge efforts to calm violence ahead of January elections.

The United States and its allies in Iraq are engaged in a battle of wills with insurgents, Rumsfeld told US marines during an earlier stop at a desert airbase north-west of Baghdad.

"They are hoping to cause members of the coalition to decide that the pain and the ugliness and the difficulty of the task is simply too great," he said.

"They know they cannot defeat us militarily. But they are hoping they can win the test of wills. It's a battle of morale. It's a battle of perception," he declared.

Rumsfeld, who held separate meetings with US commanders, US Ambassador John Negroponte and Iraqi interim Prime Minister Iyad Allawi in Baghdad, arrived a few hours after two blasts brought more bloodshed to the capital.

The first explosion was near the Oil Ministry and a nearby police academy soon after 7am local time. Ministry spokesman Assem Jihad said 17 people had been killed by a suicide car bomb that may have gone off before it reached the police academy, where recruits were lining up.

"Most of the dead were passersby, including seven women," Jihad said.

An Interior Ministry official said investigators were still trying to decide if the blast was caused by a bomb or a rocket. He put the death toll at six. Police put it at nine.

The confusion over the toll arose partly because about two weeks ago Iraq's interim Government told the Health Ministry, once the only reliable source on casualty figures, to stop releasing them to the media. It gave no reason for the order.

In eastern Baghdad, the US military said a suicide bomber attacked a US convoy, wounding an American soldier. Two civilians were also wounded. The Interior Ministry official said the bomber's charred body was found inside the vehicle.

Insurgents and militants trying to undermine the US-backed Government have mounted frequent bomb, rocket and mortar attacks on state buildings and Iraqi security forces.

The Pentagon and the interim Government are eager to improve security throughout the country before the January polls for a national assembly and to prevent insurgents from derailing them.

Credible elections began to look somewhat less improbable on Saturday after a fiercely anti-US Shi'ite militia agreed to disarm in Baghdad and delegates from rebel-held Falluja said the Sunni Muslim city wanted to vote in the polls.

The progress came in separate sets of talks with the Iraqi interim Government and US officials.

The Mehdi Army militia led by Shi'ite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr agreed to hand over weapons to Iraqi police from today under a deal that could end fighting in Baghdad's Sadr City district.

The Government said the Sadr City accord was a good chance for "all misled armed groups in Iraq to rejoin civil society".

Sadr's militia has staged two uprisings against US and Iraqi forces this year. A Sunni insurgency still smoulders in large swathes of northern and central Iraq, including Falluja.

Sadr City has been the scene of nightly clashes with US forces in recent weeks, while repeated US air strikes have attacked suspected foreign militant targets in Falluja.

There have been substantial casualties among civilians as well as fighters.

Karim al-Bakhati, negotiating for people in Sadr City, said US forces had promised to halt attacks on the Shi'ite slum.

Falluja delegates said the city wanted to take part in the elections and could accept the return of Iraqi security forces.

Falluja has been in the hands of anti-American insurgents since US forces failed to dislodge them in an April offensive. Foreign Islamist militants are also said to have bases there.

Insurgents in Falluja said on Sunday they were prepared to pursue a truce with the Government as long as US troops stayed out of the city. Some said they were willing to hand over heavy weapons and allow Iraqi National Guards to come in.

It was still not clear whether hardline insurgents would go along with any deal reached by Falluja representatives led by Khaled al-Jumaili. Similar agreements in the past have failed.

US forces and Iraq's interim Government have said they will retake all rebel-held towns and cities before the January elections if other options fail. Samarra, north of Baghdad, has already been overrun by US and Iraqi forces.